Democracy and the Transnational Capitalist Class. The Annals of the American

ABSTRACT: While globalization means many different things to many different people, there is growing consensus that capitalist globalization is its most powerful contemporary form. This article ar-gues that capitalist globalization, and thus effective power in the global system, is increasingly in the hands of a transnational capital-ist class (TCC) comprising four fractions: those who own and control the major corporations and their local affiliates, globalizing bureau-crats and politicians, globalizing professionals, and consumerist elites. The TCC engages in a variety of activities that take place at all levels, including community, urban, national, and global politics, and involve many different groups of actors. Two sets of questions are ad-dressed: (1) What forms do these activities take? and (2) Do they en-hance or undermine democracy? The role of the TCC is analyzed through brief case studies on Codex Alimentarius and the global to-bacco industry